From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 11 19:34:38 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D4CE516A4CE for ; Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:34:38 +0000 (GMT) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (clunix.cl.msu.edu [35.9.2.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22D6343D1D for ; Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:34:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu) Received: (from jerrymc@localhost) by clunix.cl.msu.edu (8.11.7p1+Sun/8.11.7) id j2BJYYJ03904; Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:34:34 -0500 (EST) From: Jerry McAllister Message-Id: <200503111934.j2BJYYJ03904@clunix.cl.msu.edu> To: freeknossin@tiscali.nl (Freek Nossin) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:34:33 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <20050311165759.30F048011F4F@smtp-out3.tiscali.nl> from "Freek Nossin" at Mar 11, 2005 05:58:10 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: format slice X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:34:39 -0000 > > Hello, > > I have a freebsd installation on a disk with two slices. One of them has the > current freebsd install, the other has a win2k installation. I want to > convert the win2k slice to a freebsd slice (by deleting the old one and add > a new one). I followed the handbook but when I try to delete the win2k > slice, and want to write the changes to the disk, sysinstall returns "a disk > error". The steps I took were simple: > > - run sysinstall en select fdisk > - choose delete on the NTFS slice > - Write changes > > Then sysinstall complains that it cannot do that (no specific information on > the cause of the error is displayed). > > Does anyone know what can be wrong and how can I solve this? Well, it looks like you started right. But "write changes" can cover a lot of things - all of which need to be done. After you delete the NTFS slice, you must create a new FreeBSD slice in its place. Then you need to do the disklabel part to make at least one partition in the slice (more are possible if you want to divide it for some reason. Then that (those) slice(s) must be newfs-ed. You also need to establish a mount point and mount the newly newfs-ed filesystem(s). Sysinstall should do all that for you if you do all of its steps before bailing out of sysinstall. It might not do the mount though. But, it should create the mount point and put the mount line in /etc/fstab. Alternatively, you can do it all yourself and skip sysinstall. That is what I normally do. Study the man pages for each of these before starting. They have recently been improved, but can still be very confusing. The steps are: fdisk -- overwrites the NTFS slice and creates a new FreeBSD slice in its place. Set it active if you want to boot from it. disklabel -- writes a FreeBSD label and divides the slice in to partitions. newfs -- creates a filesystem in each partition you run it on. mkdir -- create the new mount point mkdir /newmnt or whatever you want to call it edit /etc/fstab -- to enter your mount information so it will mount at boot time without you doing by hand all the time. fsck -- the new file system, just in case. mount -a -- To mount the file system If you have done everything and it still doesn't work, then more information is needed to make any good guesses. But, check all this first. ////jerry > > > > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >